Virgin Media Discussion Thread

Swifty55 · 3 Jan 2017 at 17:17

the_wu said:
It's been pretty solid since we had it installed in Sept. Reading the forums, some stating Virgin have 'oversubscribed' and the network cannot cope with the demand.

Congestion would be indicated by slow speeds only during the peak time.

If you're getting issues in the morning, etc then it probably is an SNR issue.

Have you had an official response from VM?

the_wu · 3 Jan 2017 at 17:55

They've only mentioned there's an issue, I have the fault code but I can't seem to find any details on google regarding what that means.

Duke · 3 Jan 2017 at 19:52

SNR is Signal-to-noise ratio. There will be noise or power level issues on the network outside the tolerance the modem can cope with to keep it connected to the network.

MG42Maniac · 3 Jan 2017 at 22:29

the_wu said:
Anyone have issues in area 21? I should be on 100mb but struggling with max of 5mb since 31 Dec. Estimated time for fix is 10th Jan! Apparently the fault is do do with 'SNR'.

I'm in 21, Southampton to be precise. The connection has been up and mainly down all day. ******* annoying as I'm trying to stream The Grand Tour

Girlfriend is going mad as she can't stream EastEnders. First world problems eh!?

Psycho Sonny · 4 Jan 2017 at 01:09

FiveOverEight · 4 Jan 2017 at 10:45

the_wu said:
It's been pretty solid since we had it installed in Sept. Reading the forums, some stating Virgin have 'oversubscribed' and the network cannot cope with the demand.

Happens more than you think with over subscription.

Angerer · 4 Jan 2017 at 15:07

Just ordered a UAP-AC-LR will run it with old VM SH first then maybe purchase an edge x later if needed.

Wish me luck

Berserker · 4 Jan 2017 at 15:31

FiveOverEight said:
Happens more than you think with over subscription.

I had a six-month battle with them that came down to this. Issues started in April last year and after about a dozen engineer visits, six SuperHub2, a SuperHub3, re-cabling and all the rest, they finally admitted that this was the real problem.

In November, despite yet another promise to fix it, I gave up, cancelled broadband and phone (I still have TiVo, for now), and went back to my old favourite (PlusNet). Rock solid ever since.

Area Reference 31, if you're interested.

Trig · 4 Jan 2017 at 16:36

I'm in area 30, its still crap, and then they give us a massive credit of £8.81...

Whoopie!

******s

Swifty55 · 4 Jan 2017 at 17:01

They do eventually fix it, after 2 years!

Trig · 4 Jan 2017 at 18:25

haha yeah like I'm going to wait that long..

Swifty55 · 4 Jan 2017 at 19:02

Trig said:
haha yeah like I'm going to wait that long..

If you can get a decent FTTC connection, then I would jump ship.

I couldn't as my speeds were 12Mbps!

Trig · 4 Jan 2017 at 19:31

FTTC/FTTP just isnt going to give me the speeds I want though, which is exactly why Virgin do what they do, there is no competition

ChrisD. · 4 Jan 2017 at 19:33

I'd rather have a stable 24/7 connection with an FTTC provider than something hopeless that VM give you that's only 200mbit or whatever on a decent day.

Swifty55 · 4 Jan 2017 at 20:03

ChrisD. said:
I'd rather have a stable 24/7 connection with an FTTC provider than something hopeless that VM give you that's only 200mbit or whatever on a decent day.

That's what I thought... Until I took a 13Mbps connection with BT.

Unless you get 50Mbps+ on FFTC, then it's really pointless as anything less is just painfully slow.

Berserker · 4 Jan 2017 at 20:52

ChrisD. said:
I'd rather have a stable 24/7 connection with an FTTC provider than something hopeless that VM give you that's only 200mbit or whatever on a decent day.

This. They used to be fine, then they went crazy with all the speed upgrades without upgrading the infrastructure, and it all went to hell. I actually downgraded to see if it would help, it didn't.

Thankfully, after swapping out the BT faceplate and the poor excuse for a telephone cable I get 79.9 Mbps downstream on FTTC, so its all good.

asim18 · 4 Jan 2017 at 23:49

ChrisD. said:
I'd rather have a stable 24/7 connection with an FTTC provider than something hopeless that VM give you that's only 200mbit or whatever on a decent day.

My virgin connection has been stable 24/7 outside of the oversubsription issues. I'm actually very glad I stuck with them through the 9 months of oversubsription issues. They used to give me about £15 credit per month which was great and I could just use my phone's tethering during peak times.

Since the issues got fixed about 3 years ago it's been absolutely 100% stable as far as i can notice. And im happy to be on a far superior technology.

Docsis, when implemented properly, absolutely trumps these crappy 100 year old phone line xdsl connections which they call "fibre" lol.

Berserker · 5 Jan 2017 at 00:12

asim18 said:
Since the issues got fixed about 3 years ago it's been absolutely 100% stable as far as i can notice. And im happy to be on a far superior technology.

I had several years of 100% stable too, until it went belly-up. That's the real problem with Virgin - when they work, they're great, but when they don't, they're all but useless, and it's a lottery as to which Virgin you get. Virgin are utterly hopeless at diagnosing intermittent faults, despite their CS agents often having the tools to hand. They can get at lots of graphs of connection speed, reliability etc., but few of them actually do this (especially the non-UK ones).

I tried the tethering route, but unfortunately I run off-site backups to and from my home network, and that needs rock-solid connections - otherwise the backup agent spends all its time trying to re-sync to get back to the point where the last backup failed. Now I've got a stable connection, I've got 2-3 months of 24/7 2Mbps traffic to catch back up!

asim18 · 5 Jan 2017 at 05:48

Berserker said:
I had several years of 100% stable too, until it went belly-up. That's the real problem with Virgin - when they work, they're great, but when they don't, they're all but useless, and it's a lottery as to which Virgin you get. Virgin are utterly hopeless at diagnosing intermittent faults, despite their CS agents often having the tools to hand. They can get at lots of graphs of connection speed, reliability etc., but few of them actually do this (especially the non-UK ones).

Totally agree. Cable/docsis as a technology has some serious potential, unfortunately Virgin just arent proactive enough with their network and they don't have a clue what they're doin. They have a very delayed reactive response to issues. It takes them 3+ months of broken internet for them to even recognise there's an issue, and then it takes them a further 6-18 months to get it fixed, if ever lol.

Most of the time they won't even do anything, they just leave it broken and hope a few dozen people cancel their services thus easing oversubsription. It's a horrible company. I mean why would they spend tens of thousands of pounds to increase capacity to a node just for a couple extra subscribers?

Thats what it's all about these days, running things as cheap as possible and maximising profits.

Their call centre staff are a horrible bunch of liars too.

ChrisD. · 5 Jan 2017 at 08:15

Swifty55 said:
That's what I thought... Until I took a 13Mbps connection with BT.

Unless you get 50Mbps+ on FFTC, then it's really pointless as anything less is just painfully slow.

I have 45 down and 18 up, I had VM 150 mbit before which wasn't too bad but I'd still rather have FTTC. I didn't have much evidence of over subscription but it was basic things like YouTube, streaming, gaming etc that were all really, really poor.

The only time I'd get VM now if FTTC was available is as a supplementary link for increased download speeds but tbh, I've learned to adjust so for the cost I doubt I'd bother. As above, horrible, horrible company.